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An excellent, if easy, puzzle from Brummie with a surplus of good anagrams and partial anagrams. Some of the clues were very wordy, several running to three lines, but every word seemed to be fully used. There were several Ks in the lower half of the grid and what with an X and a Z I thought there might be something going on but I can’t see it.

DADAISM — DA(DAIS)M — a dais is a raised floor inside block, a dam. Dadaism was an early thwentieth century art movement preceding surrealism. Its name supposedly comes from a childish word for rocking horse.

12

OSSEOUS — (SO+SO+USE)* — interesting use of so-and-so.

14

WEHRMACHT — HEW< + (MARCH)* + T — very nice surface building a charade for the German “defence force”.

16

COFFEE-TABLE BOOK — cryptic def. — books such as these are rarely read, though this week we discovered our coffee-tables might be groaning under the weight of everything from Rushdie to Beckham.

22

ST KITTS — (SKIS+T+T+T)* — very sly using three times to give the three Ts. St Kitts and Nevis is a small Carribean nation.

24

KARMA — K(ARM)A — my partner used to drive a Ford Ka, she may have good karma in store for her some day.

Down

4

ADAM — A+DAM — a second appearance for dam as block. Avenue’s westernmost makes a change to first or top and pairs up with Paradise convincingly to lose the definition for a moment or two.

5

ACROPHOBIA — (ARABIC HOOP)* — it’s hard to imagine an Arabic hoop is a piece of climbing kit but it’s a good anagram.

7

HEROIC — HERO(in ch)IC — very nice subtraction.

14

WITNESS BOX — (WON SIX BEST)* — is Brummie Cyclops or am I getting my setters confused? Flipping is a great anagram indicator here but a little too tame for Private Eye, perhaps.

17

EGYPTIAN — E + A in (TYPING)* — contrasting this with Pasquale’s clue for Egyptian a week or too ago shows just why cryptic crosswords are so much more enjoyable than Su Doku. Two good clues to the same word but each very different. Can’t say that about last week’s 826541397.

RITZ — “writs” — The Ritz Hotel is probably expensive, the Ritz Tandoori isn’t. I’m off for a curry!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 13th, 2007 at 8:30 pm and is filed under Guardian.
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Those getting married do not promise ‘I do’ but ‘I will’ – a very common misconception. (I speak of the Anglican church but maybe they do say ‘I do’ in certain American churches? – someone can tell us maybe!).
The bride’s father sometimes says ‘I do’ when presenting the bride, but really he should do it without saying anything.